Without getting into the very technical aspects of a HIIT (high intensity interval training) session – I will do my best to explain why you should and of course, why you possibly should not be doing this exercise. If you decide to start a regime, be prepared for extreme weight loss and increased fitness.
Simply put, HIIT training is a form of interval training, meaning that you are varying your intensity throughout your workout, but it does have some differences to traditional interval training.
1) The workouts are very short, while some extremely fit individuals may be able to go for longer than ten minutes, it is unlikely that you will get that far in your first few workouts, if ever.
2) The “intense” part of the training is just that, intense. Imagine a 100m sprint in the Olympics, that’s intense. Sprinting on the treadmill at gym, not so much.
3) A HIIT session is not only taxing physically, but also mentally. Your body will be aching and telling you to stop way before you get to the point where you need to be to complete the session – you have to be able to push through that pain.
Given all of that, there are two reasons you should not do this type of exercise.
1) You are unfit and looking for a fast weight loss trick – you will only hurt yourself.
2) You already train too much and are likely to push yourself over the edge into the depths of over training.
One of the best ways to achieve a true HIIT session is to sprint on the track. Do a short warm up of around 5 minutes jogging, after some stretches of course. Once you are ready and warmed up, start the sprinting. As fast as you can, and as fast as your body will allow you to run, sprint for around 20-30 seconds.
You will unlikely make it to 20, but keep that goal in mind, you can’t quit after 5 or 10 seconds and expect the results.
The technical reason for this is that you want to use as much oxygen as possible in your blood and get to the point where your body cannot supply enough oxygen quickly enough for your current intensity.
So the aim is to get your heart rate up, way up. Some people use heart rate monitors for this, you can look into some very fancy ones that have alarms for when hit a certain heart rate. Personally, I use the Polar F6 watch with chest strap. It’s accurate and has all the settings I need. The max I let myself climb to is around 190bpm at which point my watch goes crazy telling me to stop. I always recommend speaking with your doctor before doing this exercise, this may be way too high for you.
Once you are done with your sprint, start walking, cool down just a little and let your body catch up. This is where the experimentation starts. Some people suggest another 30 seconds rest, some 10 seconds and some a full minute. You need to play around with times.
My times are never the same, mainly because two days are never the same, I have different energy levels and don’t always train at the same time everyday. Unless you are very focussed on these variables, do what feels right, but don’t rest for too long.
I usually stick to around 30 seconds rest, or until my heart rate has dropped down to around 150 bpm.
And that’s it, repeat 6-8 times keeping in mind that your very last sprint of the session must be the hardest and strongest – your entire training session rests on the intensity of the last spring. Your heart rate will be at it’s highest and your body will need the most recovery from that last run.
Once you are done, have some water and throw up if you need to. (If you don’t feel like throwing up, you probably didn’t train hard enough). I recommend eating something soon after training. I find a low carb protein shake works just fine for me so that I don’t crash immediately. You will find that you will sleep very well that evening.
A lot of people talk about doing HIIT training. Most don’t and have never actually trained sufficiently to get to this point. And that’s not a bad thing, interval training alone is effective, just not AS effective.
Just remember to always experiment. It IS possible to do this training in the gym – I like the spinning bikes or eliptical machines. I wouldn’t recommend a treadmill in case you are ok with possibly falling off.
Just be safe, take a days break between each session and no more than three session per week, and make sure your doctor ok’s this type of training before you start.